Casino Action deducting $8/£5.50 from withdrawals without prior warning

[thelawnet]

I have just cashed out of Aztec Riches and Phoenician casino. On looking at the amounts I saw it seemed £5.50 short. So I checked, and sure enough, both cheques were £5.50 less than I had actually withdrawn.

So I went into my UK Casino Club account, which is also owned by Casino Action, and went to try a withdrawal. Click withdrawal, next, no notification of any charge. I also tried the casino website - nothing there either.

So I went to question the casino:

An operator will be with you shortly. You are number 1 in the queue. Your wait time will be approximately 0 minute(s) and 43 seconds. Thank you for waiting.
You are now chatting with 'Matt'
Your Reference Number for this chat is LTK6303080890X. Please quote this in any correspondance
you: hi
Matt: Hello, how may I help you today?
you: could you tell me if you have any fees for withdrawing money?
Matt: Hi.
Matt: We do not charge any fees for withdrawals. The only exception is for checks. For cashins sent via check, there is a US$8.00 check handling fee.
you: $8?
you: I was charged £5.50
Matt: That is eight United States Dollars.
Matt: Yes 5.50 UK pounds is 8 dollars US.
you: is that anywhere in your terms and conditions?
you: I didn't realise I would be charged in this way
you: is it on your site somewhere?
Matt: You were sent an email outlining the withdrawal methods and their fees.
Matt: You may not have received this due to spam filters on your email inbox.
Matt: It is an automated email.
you: do you know what the subject of this email would be?
you: and when it would have been sent, i.e. when I signed up, or when I made the withdrawal?
Matt: It should be something like " Your recent Withdrawal"
Matt: It would have bene sent once your cashin came out of pending.
you: I have 'your recent casino cashin'
you: but it doesn't contain anything about fees
Matt: One moment please while I check your account details.
Matt: As your registered email is at Yahoo, they have their own set of Spam filters that tend to block our automated emails on occasion. The email may have been blocked by these. I suggest that you use another email address as your registered email on your casino account.
you: no, I have receive your emails
you: I have a filter on my yahoo account that diverts any email containg the word 'casino' to my inbox
you: I have also just now checked all my bulk emails back to the 3rd of december when I signed up
you: all the spam is kept in a separate folder for 28 days, and it is not in there
Matt: But the spam filters I am referring to are those set up by yahoo itself. They cannot be changed or adapted by you, the user. We are aware that players with yahoo emaila ddresses are nto receiving all of our emails due to these.
you: i have received three emails from you, one with my account details when signing up, and two on cashout
you: none of these emails contain any information about these fees
you: do you have a record of when the email was sent with the details of these fees?
Matt: What i am saying is that the Yahoo installed spam filters appear to have blocked the email regarding fees and cashin payment methods.
you: the spam filters do not block things though, they divert emails to a special junk folder
you: that is different from blocking
you: anyway, I am asking if you have a record of when this email about fees was sent out?
Matt: This was sent out when your cashin came out of pending.
Matt: This appears to have bene on the 8th of December 2005.
you: and what exactly was the Subject of that email please?
Matt: The subject of the email would have been: "Regarding Your recent Withdrawal"
Matt: But as stated above, we are awre that YAHOO filters that they put up on their email providers that CANNOT be disabled or changed by the user tend to block these emails on occasion.

This is a very common response from casinos - we sent it, but it must have been blocked by your spam filter. This is wrong in this case, as I explained to the rep: Yahoo demonstrably DOES NOT BLOCK EMAILS. This is a very important point. Users will often say they haven't received emails because they have gone into the bulk folder, but when you actually check the bulk folder and it is not there either, it stretches credulity. And for this to happen for accounts on three separate casinos? I think not.

They filter emails into a spam folder (which I have checked), but they do not block them outright. This is according to Yahoo themselves, and also verifiable by searching online - there is no record of yahoo actually blocking emails.

Furthermore, I have received all of their emails on several accounts, why would yahoo block this one, and coming from several different casinos.

Further to this, it's wrong that they are imposing charges after the cashin comes out of pending status, as claimed by the rep. If you want to charge for withdrawals, there needs to be something about it when you cashout. When the cashin is no longer reversible is too late - there is nothing to stop them charging £50 withdrawal fees, because it is after the fact and I have no chance to object.

If I had known I would have withdrawn to my neteller account.

This behaviour is unacceptable on many levels.

[suzecat]

I agree! This smacks of a casino changing terms in midstream and covering their a$$ by saying they sent an email but it was blocked by your ISP's spam filter. Too freaking convenient for my taste. Times must be extremely tough in the online casino world when they feel compelled to recoup a lousy eight bucks by trickery.

[Dirk Diggler]

EXACT same experience for me when I played there about a year ago. Totally disgusting to take money from players withdrawals without notification in my opinion.

Click2Pay also do this to UK clients - only they take £15 on top of the withdrawal fees shown (claim it's not them but a third party charge for cutting the cheque WTF )

Stopped using them as well.

From a business point of view I just can't see their reasoning behind it, it just leaves players with the feeling they are being screwed. I can't even start to imagine the amount of players they've lost purely over this.

If they want to charge then that's up to them, but make sure it's CLEAR up front - both on the website and in the cashier.

[thelawnet]

EXACT same experience for me when I played there about a year ago.

ah, so their explanation, that the emails were totally blocked by yahoo on three separate occasions, despite the fact that yahoo says it doesn't block emails is a load of bullshit, they just do this as a matter of course.

I thought as much.

[vinylweatherman]

I have taken this lot to task a number of times for changing T & C, or enforcement policy, without telling players. When they made changes to the bonus system I found 3 different versions of the T & C simultaneously on the Aztec Riches website. I complained to support, and the confirmed the correct terms, but failed to change the website for months. I believe it is correct now.
Withdrawal fees are suggested in "Casino Action" under VIP benefits at next level. No amounts are mentioned, but VIPs have a benefit of "No charges for withdrawals", implying that charges do exist. I was never charged for withdrawals to Neteller, which is the only method I use there.

E-mails often do not arrive from them, and unlike Yahoo, NTL did NOT have a spam filter at the time, so they did not get away with that excuse on me.
Interestingly, I did not get notification E-mails for most of my withdrawals, it seems hit and miss with them.
Many casinos only charge for courier cheques, so £5.50 for a normal one is rather steep. (Neteller charge £2), but for £1 will now pay straight to a UK bank.
Casino Action VIP is easy, 2/3 months and £5000+ deposits is at least Gold (wait for invite). Platinum comes around £6000. This is gross deposits, irrespective of win or lose. Comp redemption is good then, but earning rate is less than most MG, and depends on games.

[GrandMaster]

Not making the charge clear when you withdraw is very naughty. Someone should also point it out to them that $8 is not £5.50 but more like £4.50.

[Casinomeister]

Not making the charge clear when you withdraw is very naughty. Someone should also point it out to them that $8 is not £5.50 but more like £4.50.

Should we put them on the "naughty" list?

Seriously, this is not right. If there are fees, they need to be upfront in the T&Cs etc.

Quick comment to thelawnet: you should have told Matt to resend the email to see where it would go. That would have been helpful to see whether it would be bounced or filtered or whatever.

[Casinomeister]

Silly me - I haven't updated the "Casino Operators" page recently. Trish is a member:
http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...no-action.html

I've emailed her to let her know what's up.

[jetset]

This practice seems wrong on a number of levels - players are entitled to know when a substantial charge is going to be levied on their withdrawals and that means notification in the T&Cs as the 'Meister says, and ideally notification upfront in the banking section too.

I agree with thelawnet that this Yahoo excuse for not receiving a notification email sounds very suspicious.

[Casino Action]

Hi thelawnet,

Firstly, we appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

We understand your point of view in relation to the fact that the email you receive once your cashin is processed explains there is a fee involved with relation to a check payment being processed.

We are in the process of going through each of our casinos banking pages and ensuring that there is a note to state there is a fee associated with a check cashin. Players are urged and encouraged to come to the 24x7 support centre for more information. Our support operators are only too happy to assist with any queries that may arise.

This was in no way an attempt to deceive you as a player of the casinos or an attempt to change our terms and conditions mid-flight.

This appears to be an oversight on our behalf and once again we do appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

As a measure of good faith, we would like for you to please contact us directly either via livechat or email and we will send you a complimentary bonus for keeping us in check!

All the best.

Casino Action.